1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector for a sheet-like connection member such as a flexible printed circuit or cable (FPC), a flexible flat cable (FFC) and so forth. All of these cables and circuit will be generally referred to as “FPC”. The instant application relates to a contemporaneously filed application having the same title, the same applicants and the same assignee with the instant application.
2. Description of Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 6,004,156 discloses a flexible flat connector including an insulative housing which retains a plurality of contacts and defines a receiving cavity for movably receiving an actuator. Each of the contacts has a fixed arm fixed in the housing and an opposing resilient arm extending into the receiving cavity. The actuator has a tongue received in the receiving cavity and movable between a closed position and an open position. The tongue has a top face adapted to retain a portion of a flexible flat cable whereby when the tongue is moved to the closed position, the portion of the flexible flat cable is moved into the receiving cavity and electrically engages with the resilient arms of the contacts. A plurality of spaced slots are defined in a bottom face of the tongue corresponding to the fixed arms of the contacts whereby when the tongue is moved from the open position to the closed position, the fixed arms of the contacts are guidingly received in the slots for guiding the movement of the actuator.
For more convenient insertion of a FPC, when the tongue is at the open position, the actuator will be tilted a little by raising its rear end that is out of the receiving cavity while its front end in the receiving cavity abutting against the housing. However, as the connector is of a lower profile and the tongue of the actuator is very thin one and therefore the slots are very shallow, when the actuator is tilted, the slots at the front end of the tongue are apt to disengage with the fixed arms of the contacts to make a flat front edge the tongue directly abut on the fixed arms. The front edge is apt to slide on the fixed arms along a direction perpendicular to an insertion direction of the actuator, which may result in misalignment between the actuator and the fixed arms of the contacts.
It is thus desired to provide an FPC connector of a lower profile having an actuator performing a well alignment with contacts thereof even when the actuator is tilted.